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A 250-year-old census has revealed that islanders on the remote St Kilda archipelago, which was evacuated in 1930, ate 18 seabirds each every day.

The newly-found document, which contains the earliest known list of the island population, was discovered by archivists among a hoard of clan papers.

It reveals there were 90 people on the main island of Hirta in June 1764 - 38 males and 52 females, including 19 families and nine individuals.

It also sheds light on their remarkable diet, which was based on the hundreds of thousands of sea birds that breed on the islands.

The census states that each resident ate "36 wild fouls eggs and 18 fouls (birds)“ daily - a grand total of 3,240 eggs and 1,620 birds every day.

Men attending the daily 'parliament' meeting in the main village, circa 1880Credit:
Getty

The figures are not explained in the census, but may be accurate as previous studies have suggested the St Kildans would eat puffins as a snack - the local equivalent of a packet of crisps. In 1876, nearly 90,000 puffins were said to have been taken for their meat and feathers.

They kept sheep and a small number of cattle, but seabirds, particularly gannets, fulmars and puffins, were the mainstay of the diet.

They rarely fished around the rugged islands, because the waters were so dangerous, but were also said to find the taste of fish insipid compared to seabirds.

The men would abseil down cliff faces to gather gannets and fulmars while the women took puffins from their burrows.

The census also includes details of the ancestors of the final five families evacuated from the archipelago, which lies 40 miles west of the Western Isles - the MacQueens, Fergusons, Gillies, MacDonalds and MacKinnons.

Remains of the main settlement, Village Bay, HirtaCredit:
Alamy

They left following increasing contact with the outside world, and after the departure from the island of many of the young men following the First World War.

The death of four men from flu, and crop failures in the 1920s, also played a part in the decision by the residents to petition the UK Government to bring them to the mainland.

Earlier this year, the last surviving resident of St Kilda, Rachel Johnson, died at the age of 93 in a nursing home in Clydebank. She was eight when the remaining 36 residents were evacuated by HMS Harebell.

Until now, the oldest known record of the population dated from 1822. The 18th century census was discovered among the papers of Clan Maclachlan during cataloguing by the National Register of Archives for Scotland (NRAS), the branch of the National Records of Scotland which holds historical papers held in private hands.

Alison Rosie, NRAS registrar, said the document made it possible to trace individuals back 50 years earlier than the next surviving census.

Donald Maclauchlan of Clan Maclachlan said the document was among a hoard of papers in around 13 large boxes. He said he “called in the professionals” when he realised what was there and it took the NRAS team a year-and-a-half to catalogue the papers.

The National Trust for Scotland (NTS), which owns the islands, a double Unesco world heritage site, warned recently the bird populations are falling on the islands.

A spokesman added: "It's very familiar that seabirds were part of the staple diet of the islanders and oil products and feathers from seabirds were a major part of the islands' economy."

The only regular inhabitants today are conservation workers and around a dozen defence workers manning a missile-tracking base. However, St Kilda is a popular destination for cruise ships, with over 5,000 visitors last year.